Angeliqui

As soon as grannyma leaves our little hall asking me to meet her after I've had dinner, I slink on a chair ,

Those words haunting me

These questions suffocating me to the point of snatching my appetite

I can't help but slink on our worn out sofa and allow these gnawing questions to drown me in the ocean of thoughts

Since I was a little girl with pigtails she'd whisper haunted phrases in my ears which would keep me up at night and whenever sleep would try touch me ,nightmares would seep in my soul leaving me sucking on breathe and screaming until my throat hurts

How can I not

How can nightmares not arrive

How can they not when she's used phrases like " you're a little birdie who is destined to get encaged in a gilded cage but before getting locked forever you are going to fly just a little ,just a little taste of freedom and how it feels to fly being a birdie before stepping in a gilded cage of your destiny "

I'd wonder and wonder what they meant

What does my future holds

Why am I unknown to it

If I am the birdie of that phrase then why all other birdies are free to fly all their life wherever they want and I'm about to step in a gilded cage

And by the way

What cage

What gilded cage

Why me

What's my past

Grannyma whispered all these in my ears as if preparing me for my future

As if making these thoughts seep in my bones because they'd prepare me somehow mentally

But her whispers did nothing but bought me nightmares

Yes they bring me nightmares

They give me vertigo attacks

And they give me headaches

my nightmares are all about her whispers of my destined future

Sometimes mentioning

how my entire life was written centuries ago in parchments

Every night horrendous images of cages invades my dreams

They seep deep in my soul leaving my eyes haunted with the fear of what's about to happen, who's about to happen

And just like that I have no appetite left

No will to swallow my favorite dinner of apples

So with my heartbeat pounding in my ears I step foot one after another and finally pick the dinner and put it in fridge because if I tried to eat, I'd puke

I cannot stomach to eat anything

How can I? Knowing I'm about to know everything

Knowing I'm about to get answers of my every nightmare

Knowing I'm about to know all about the gilded cage she's always whispered about for which I've been destined

I didn't realized I was shaking until my eyes fell on my legs and I cannot stop shaking

With the weight of the world on my heart

I make my way towards her room

Oh grannyma please spare me of what's about to come

But my self crucifying thoughts have to stop

Because I have to face the reality of answers now and step out of the paracosmic world I've created around me

And hence I move

Knock knock

" may I enter your place, grannyma " I asked on shaky breathe, my voice comes out weaker and scared then I intended

" yes, you may ,angle " her voice is as sharp as a new sword

I stepped in

And I can tell something's changed ,

The atmosphere? The way she's looking at me with piercing eyes? The way I feel like it's not my first step in her room but my first step towards what's awaiting for me

The way I feel it's the start of everything about to change

The way I feel my paracosmic world is about to flip upside down

" you're not a little girl anymore you cannot always look like this anymore " her sharp voice startled me

And if I'm not wrong and I ain't getting it wrong for the first time she's speaking to me in such a stern voice

She always treated me like a fragile flower who needed care and protection to survive but not now, not in this moment

That is why I'm oh so terrified

" what is it grannyma, what do we need to talk about " my voice still comes out like a voice of little bird speaking for the first time

" I know you have had nightmares of my whispers but you never stopped me from whispering, I know you have your guesses and I also know you have questions that have stayed silent for so long but now they're roaring to life, I can see them roaring in your birdie eyes " again that stern voice

It does nothing but leaves my lips parted and mouth open a little

Wondering what is it I'm about to know

Why my entire body is shaking

I'd like to blame it on the cold weather but I know better why I'm shaking

" you're scaring me grannyma, you're really scaring me " I surprised myself with how my words are choked on tears

When did I got on the verge of crying

When did these tears started seeping through my eyes

" your fate was destined four centuries ago and you need to read these before we talk " taking out bundle of parchments wrapped in rustic looking rope

They look exquisitely ancient

They scream history

They scream my destiny

They are full of words

Faint words

Probably written centuries ago with feather flock dipped in ink

These parchments holds the key to the answers of my nightmares

These parchments would dictate my fate

These parchments would lead me to the gilded cage I'm destined for

With a heartbreaking sigh

Grannyma holds them up to me

Gesturing me to take them

Those parchments looks as if beckoning me

Why won't  I stop shaking

I muster all the courage I could and feather my touch near the parchment

Mustering courage from every morsel of mine I take them and run towards our garden and dwell deep in the world of history

In past ,when someone centuries ago wrote my fate in these parchments

I start reading them.

And by reading I start damning my soul forever

1721,

In this year ,on this date ,the thirteenth day ,of the ninth month

We hereby convene to settle the unsightly claims and forthwith family disruptions between Theorth Barsetti and Deylor Moon .

We call upon the royal sovereignty to grace this binding agreement upon the two Villas ,to put aside flagitious slander, immoral and inhumane actions and settle this as gentlemen

As esquire the binding hall and estate I have mention Deylor Moon and family, including church sanctified marriage to Synolia Moon and their offspring of two boys shall also be governed by the degree inked today.

Or they shall be first ,drowned in the chill of winter until their bones are mere sticks and then they shall hang by the neck until dead for the horrendous crimes found unjustifiable by the court of England so help me God "

I undoubtedly read this parchment

But every single word flew above my brain

Or maybe I just don't want to register them ,

Maybe I'm not strong enough to register them

Whatever might be the reason, I need to read it again

Because my heart cannot take this

No no no

Please be a nightmare like always

Please don't be real

Anyway

I skim my eyes over the first parchment again

Feeling my heart sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness

If what my brain says is true then our family has been found guilty of some yet to be solved mysterious crime

Four hundred years back

God

Weren't we the good people from start

Why won't my heart accept this parchment

Especially those two words

Horrendous crimes

What crimes

Why horrendous

Is it even true

Did the justice really made the right decision

Was he sure ,who's the guilty party

And guilty of what

Why hadn't I known all this till now

And why now

And just like that grannyma's another whisper from another night of my childhood hits me like hallucination

When you're twenty-one, your life changes, your life leads you to the fate you're destined for

And just like that my anger intensifies

How dare grannyma hide all this from me all these years

How dare she make me believe my life is fairytale in the universe of paracosm when my reality is this .

These parchments with words inked so deep, they scream of unspeakable dark tales that happened four hundred years ago

Oh my God

Is it really, really, four hundred years

God

Please someone tell me it's just a terrible nightmare and not the reality

But I know it's real and it's the reality because the flakes of snow have started decorating my skin, turning my skin the pale red shade of rose, but I have no will to hide from this ice that mother nature is showering on me

As if preparing me for coldness

As if trying to say something

As if mourning me already

I do the only thing that comes first in my twisted and unhinged mind

I tip my head upwards towards the sky and scream

I wail

I wail

Oh I wail

Until my throat hurts

Today, after reading this one parchment from the bundle of many

I allow the snow to freeze me

Maybe in freezing me it'll freeze the time too

Maybe it'll freeze the claws that are coming to me

The claws that have waited four hundred years to pierce me

Or like my grannyma say

Encaged me

I scream and scream

Until I cannot anymore

All my nightmares have come true in the form of inked parchments

I scream at the almighty creator

Why create me when my life is nothing but these threat soaked parchments and cages.

Time is no longer something I'm aware of or something I care about

A loud thump invades my ocean of thoughts

What made this thump sound

I don't know

And I don't even realize until I feel the semi ice seeping inside my skin through my knees

I am on my knees

Tears have blurred my vision

I am shaking

I'm not sure from ice or from the knowledge of premonition

I remember falling on my knees to wail

Maybe that time my knees got scraped

It was just one parchment that did this to me

What embedded in others then

How much more word torture I need to endure

I don't even realize when the evening turned to night

I'm supposed to stop wailing

I'm supposed to read each and every parchment

I just don't feel the strength to read them

I feel worn out

It's only then that I really choke on worry that the snowfall must've soaked and ruined the screaming history

Mother Nature might won't even let me have the chance to read the screaming history and prepare for future

But it soothes my nerves when my eyes scan them

They're safely wrapped in leather bag

If it were any normal day, grannyma would've come to find me

She would've scolded me for staying in snow

She would've chided me until I pouted

But not today

She is fully aware every morsel of mine is getting tangled with these parchments and she shouldn't step in

She shouldn't interfere

Just like she should have not interfered with my right to know this history of ours from four hundred years back

Why keep me a fragile petal when she knew I was destined for something so painful

With a heavy soul

Feeling the weight of the universe on my shoulders

Weight of the parchment holding the voices and screams from last four hundred years

I pluck another parchment out of the bundle

Securing all others so that they're not at the mercy of Mother Nature like me

Refusing to hear what my body begs

I do not care if I die of freezing

I'll read

I don't need my health ,I need knowledge

I need to know the reality

I need to understand the last four hundred years to put myself in the play of fate by these parchments

My gaze skim over the next parchment

Already whispering of historical pain

And then

I start dwelling deep in the next parchment.

eradicate myself from twenty first century and proceeded to be swept to 1721

"For actions committed by Deylor Moon and his entourage of well to do associates ,he is now declared guilty, judged and wanting for his inhumane crimes and heinous deeds that are completely unjustifiable by the English Court

His life is determined by the grace of Theorth Barsetti who states the following comeuppance :

Monetary compensation

Public amend makings

Public apology

Bodily retribution

Rights to command guilty party's every action from this day on "

I skipped other ancient time law jargon filled paragraphs which were full of crimes and punishments

My mind is scattered ,totally unhinged

I know that Deylor Moon was my ancestor but we don't carry the title Moon any longer

Grannyma once told me that family history snatched our title

I think ,in the folds of these parchments I'll find out why and how our title was snatched

I can already tell

It was the family line of Mr Theorth Barsetti who snatched it as all our history from four hundred years is linked with them

In my heart ..

My heart

It aches with the knowledge that I belong to a family who's committed crimes to the extent of horrendous that even after four century we are supposed to acknowledge it and pay .

Pay ,

I don't know in what form they'll make me pay as in this generation I am all my family line has left ,well, young and alive to pay however history demands.

Other than my grannyma, it's just me alive

And it hurts

Why my destiny was chosen to be cursed

Why my fate was jinxed with the history carrying weight of four hundred years

Last night I passed out after freezing so much for the tolerance of human body

I don't know how grannyma carried me to my room

Or if she asked someone to help carrying me

But when I woke up ,I was in my room with the parchments safely placed on the mantel

Whole day I read them

It's evening now

Sun showering it's most beautiful shade

Whole day I didn't step out of my room

Whole day I didn't heard anything from grannyma

Whole day I stayed swept lost in the era of four hundred years ago

The era which is snatching my future with vengeance in today's era

A small part of me kept wondering

Who are Barsettis

Will I meet them

Do they know me

Do we have any links connected after four hundred years

And most importantly

Why on earth do I feel a connection with this family title

I feel as if this family title is a part of me without whom I'd die

There's a craving for them inside me

As if the group of letters joined together to form the word BARSETTI beckons some feral, supernatural ,spiritual part of me

And I'm certain, I'm not making these things up in my mind

I actually feel them

Deep in my heart and soul

As if the name BARSETTI is embedded on my soul, scarring it forever

Only few parchments are left and I need to read them all

I need more and more knowledge

As if history is trying to hang me by neck and the knowledge of these parchments are the only safety threads encouraging me to hang onto life and survival

With that, I indulge in another paragraph of another parchment which caught my attention

" Deylor Moon hereby submits to this esquire's ruling and moves to action the latest degree formulated in this chamber by Theorth Barsetti , the death warrant upon the heads of the Moon family line will be eradicated and burned to the ground upon the signature of this newly drafted document ,terms forthcoming.. "

I cannot read the terms that were pulled centuries ago and are probably still standing

Like a knife against my throat

Another paragraph answers my another question

" On the wish of the victim villa that is Theorth Barsetti we hereby declare that Deylor Moon no longer holds the accountability to carry a family title as the family line that is going through Deylor Moon is tainted with the heinous crimes that Deylor Moon pulled, if he or any other from this family line ever attempts to defy this agreement and pride themselves with the family title Moon, the punishment of any degree would be justifiable in the accordance of English Court that Theorth Barsetti or upcoming family line of him decides, hence from today he shall be known and called without his pride family title that would be "Deylor" and attempting to add any new title would be equally punishable and the punishment shall be decided by Theorth Barsetti and the family line only, Deylor and his family line forever stays without a pride family title and that shall be the biggest stamp that they are incapable of handling a family title as they once misused it in trade of inhumane actions "

So this is why I am just Angeliqui, no title ,nothing

I read so many parchments yet no trace of what was the actual crime that Deylor moon pulled

What exactly did he do

Am I really a blood line of such a criminal

Or he was trapped and served injustice

What did he look like

What did he do

How did he continued living after he was declared such a heinous, horrendous criminal

How did the society of seventeenth century a treated him after all this

The question that's eating me alive is

Why did Theorth Barsetti spared my ancestor's life and his family line

I mean

In a way I'm grateful as his mercy on my ancestor in seventeenth century is the sole reason I am existing

Why even after centuries this English court agreements, degrees ,documents and parchments are still safely kept and carrying a haunted aura

Why every generation accepted it

Why did they all kept these safe

Why didn't they exclaimed that centuries have passed and now these agreements should be called off

Where's the Barsetti family line

Do they know we exist

Do they know about these parchments and our connections

What do they look like

Do they still hold resentment towards us for whatever happened between our ancestors

The umbrage of past is drenching them just how much

Do they know in this generation I'm the only one alive

With millions of questions swirling in my mind

I read another parchment that is regarding how we ( me and grannyma or any upcoming offspring )as the Deylor's family line is supposed to believe we are living because Barsetti's spared us mercy and the day we dare defy that fact the punishment will be of their choice

Another parchment saying that all our property and possessions that we have or had or ever acquire belongs to them as the penalty for the deeds and actions he pulled into existence , they can snatch each and every possession of ours whenever they wish

Just a snap of their finger and we'd be on streets begging for a scrape of bread

How can they hold this much power even after centuries

how

I read more and more

Time making no sense to me in this moment

And before I know

I'm in the last parchment

" Deylor and the family hereby acknowledge his agreeance to the one and only term set forth by Theorth Barsetti ,in accordance with the law, both parties have agreed that the paperwork is binding , unbreakable and inconstestable from now and forever ,details and parties of both signatures are displayed on the enclosed verified document "

" 25 September, 1721

"Signed and witnessed by theomas nurai law "

"Matter between Theorth Barsetti and deylor "

"Known forthwith as the redemption forever "

This hereby concludes all debates and conversation and puts forth a binded future .council has been provided along with sovereign approval for such an agreement .

As set in this chamber ,I have witnessed the signature of both parties of Villa Deylor and Villa Barsetti ,along with their significant entourage and companions

The redemption forever states as follows

Deylor hereby solemnly swear to present each and every offspring of his family line to the Barsetti family line of the same generation .This will nullify all unrest and unpleasantries until such a time as a new generation comes to pass

This agreement will not only bind the current occupancies of the year of our Lord 1721 but every year thereafter . Every offspring will be gifted as fair comeuppance to the Barsetti family line

The life and all attributes will be determined by the current Barsetti ,no rules or precedence will be set , and this agreement raises them above the law , operating within the grace of her Majesty the Queen of England "

Signed :



CENTURIES

I became a musafir of centuries

Only I'm a totally different person before I went through these parchment door of centuries

Every morsel and fold of my brain is exhausted

I read each and every parchment

From the penalty to the power held and earned by Barsetti's

But the professionals of four hundred years back didn't wrote the list of crimes committed by Deylor

I think ,they must've inked the list of his crimes too

And those parchments have to be somewhere

If all this has been kept safe all these years

Then they must be existing too

If in this bundle of parchments they aren't tucked then maybe the opponents have them

The Barsetti

Where are they

Who are they in today's date

Will we meet

How many hours have passed while I was lost in ancient time

Did grannyma came to check upon me

My heart feels like a suffocating ,panicked little bird who knows someone has a gun pointed at her little head and tied her body so she can't move or fly an inch

Knowing she has to accept whatever comes

Knowing she's at the mercy of fate

Knowing there's no escape

My soul feels burdened

My heart feels numb

My brain feels exhausted

Maybe I should go and check on grannyma once

But I cannot bring myself to do that

I'm too exhausted, heart, soul, body and mind

I need to escape from reality for a while

When I'm strong again ,I'll step in reality again

But right now

I need to escape

Book escape won't work as I've read too much

I cannot bring myself to look at letters any longer

I don't know from how long I haven't eaten but my body feels starved

I cannot bring myself to eat too

I don't even know if hours have passed or days or weeks or months

I don't even feel like myself

I feel like past time, ancient whiff, screaming histories, the smells of centuries old parchments ,the point of quill and I feel like dancing dripping melting wax dying from the flames of fire, sticking history so deep to eternity

I'd rather die of starvation then face the fate that is umbraged with the past of dark four hundred years

Don't you dare

If you are to die then you will die fighting like a warrior

You are a warrior

You can never give up

Especially not without even trying

You haven't even seen the Barsettis

But right now

I'd sleep this exhaustion away

Then when I wake up I'd look into things deeply

But after being so much exhausted even sleep won't seep in

My eyes are aching but wide open

What does the current Barsetti in power looks like

What's his name

Wait

His? It could be a her too, right?

If what grannyma whispered all those years is truth then the moment I turn twenty-one everything changes

That is approx one month from now

Will I meet the Barsettis

Will they approach

Will we all talk like civils

How will they treat me

Ughh

Too many questions with no one to answer

Well

Grannyma is here but I have no wishes to see her in this moment

I feel bad for feeling this

But I cannot meet her now

And since sleep won't come

I plug in my headphones and put on a melancholy to drown me somewhere deep

Where these parchments don't exist

Where only peonies and lilacs welcomes me in their warm embrace

Even there, in the embrace of peonies I ponder on the name Barsetti

I get a faded glimpse of a man with eyes so dark as if holding the depths deeper than the ocean

And just like that I'm drowning deeper and deeper until I'm deep in the embrace of sleep.

In sleep a man invades my ocean of dreams ,only all these years his face wasn't showing, his image was blurred but as I'm stepping closer to twenty -one ,his images is getting clearer

The last thing I know is the depth of his gaze as if waiting for something from centuries, as if screaming a million tales ,as if beckoning me

And I drift, drift and drift.